Learn reading on the superhero lane! Join Elino and Bombo the villain as they struggle for wor(l)d dominance. Play and read as you go, enhancing contextual learning abilities and speed while completing challenging mini-games and tasks.

● Reading becomes fun in a superhero themed game● Play 25 different fun mini-games● Read single words and sentences● Great for preschool, school and 2nd language● Game Center achievements● Can be played in short bursts (1-5 minutes)● Learn a large vocabulary, in context!

About contextual learning theory:

● Both direct instruction and constructivist activities can be compatible and effective in the achievement of learning goals.

● Increasing one’s efforts results in more ability. This theory opposes the notion that one’s aptitude is unchangeable. Striving for learning goals motivates an individual to be engaged in activities with a commitment to learning

● Children learn the standards values, and knowledge of society by raising questions and accepting challenges to find solutions that are not immediately apparent. Other learning processes are explaining concepts, justifying their reasoning and seeking information. Therefore, learning is a social process which requires social and cultural factors to be considered during instructional planning. This social nature of learning also drives the determination of the learning goals.

● Knowledge and learning are situated in particular physical and social context. A range of settings may be used such as the home, the community, and the workplace, depending on the purpose of instruction and the intended learning goals.

● Knowledge may be viewed as distributed or stretched over the individual, other persons, and various artifacts such as physical and symbolic tools and not solely as a property of individuals. Thus, people, as an integral part of the learning process, must share knowledge and tasks.

The last 24 hours were pretty mad, as finally the game launched and there are already lots of impressive high scores on Game Center.

And we’ve got our first major review, from a tiny site called 148apps.com, and it’s pretty amazing how well the essence of the game was captured by Carter Dotson. The score itself is a solid 3.5 stars, and I’m proud of it.

So one thing I forgot to mention in part 1 was how I discovered the manifesto of the Micropreneur. A few good things happened to me in my short career and two of the major ones are thanks to my friend Stephen from Melbourne. He introduced me to a big client when I did web development, making me suddenly learn the art of mastering high management meetings of an international client in a London HQ. The other thing is a link he posted on Facebook – the link to the manifesto above.

For those who don’t want to read it all, it basically says that you can be on your own and still achieve great things. Quoting from the text, it’s not about getting rich quick, not even getting rich at all. It’s about creating a sustainable way to live and work, relying on your own ability to work and create alone.

So far there’s nothing new, but the news for me personally was that it connected with a fear I always had, that one day, when I decide that I really want to do something substantial, I will have to start a firm, hire people, rent a place, etc. And then I will become a management slave, but that is the price I’d have to pay for making big things.

But according to the manifesto, this may not be always the case. You may not be able to invent, design and manufacture iPads on your own, but you can still create great software, games, literature, art, and many other beautiful things.

And, by doing this, you have to stop freelancing. Yep. Tell all your clients that you’re not available for contract work. So there is no flowing income. And now, starting from zero Armenian Zlepchkos per month you have to dig your way up with a teaspoon.

Ok, this is already getting long, therefore I’ll jump to the next assumption I had: that I will find it hard to work on my own and keep myself motivated.

Reality proved to be a total opposite. Apparently, when you’re finally and ultimately on your own, you may become focused, driven, sharp and creative. It may take a bit of time to get into focus, and find the right project to work on, that will keep you interested and so on, but all in all, the feeling is much better than people tend to think.

Doing everything on my own is very natural to me, and finally I didn’t have to feel bad about it, like I am not a team player and so on. To prove that I can be a huge collaborator, I found Ninja 9000, the pseudonym os Gisle Martens Meyer, a Norwegian musician I really liked, and licensed his music for my game. So there is one thing I didn’t do by myself, luckily, and now the game had fantastic music.

Please feel free to check out Gisle’s work on his various project websites.

At some point I had a game coming together. I spent time with friends and family (yes, you have to involve them in a lot of thoughts and decisions when going solo) analysing things I have learned along the way, insights and new ideas I had.

Then you start wondering when the game is going to be ready for launch. This sounds like a simple task, because there is a game design document and you just have to follow all the specs and add all the features and… what? I don’t have a game design document.

Listening to another mentor, I decided to follow the ‘game design log’ idea and instead of completing a GDD early on, just document my design decisions along the way. So this is more of an ongoing open world kind of saga, and there is no real way to tell when to stop.

Finally, for the task of deciding when the game is ready to launch I decided to simply follow my instincts. By this I mean, when I feel like my interest in the game, entusiasm is starting to fade, when my fears of failure become a bit too apparent, when I feel like pressure from outside is piling up… this may actually be the time to wrap up things. Sounds obvious, but it’s not. because when you do start to get the project to a conclusion, you need to be in great focus.

This is when it’s time to add a lot of little details, to add mute, pause buttons, to clean up things, to optimise code. To fix bugs. To add some fun little easter eggs. To create a trailer. To realise it may not be good enough and create another one.

So here we are, tonight the game is finally going to be hopefully downloaded by thousands, and it’s very exciting.

People say the most exciting part is seeing the high scores get added up on Game Center, so this is going to be fun… and then all the rants and 1 star reviews and annoying feature requests and bugs and a new version that fixes it all, almost.

Right after I finished working on Tiny Fireman, my game for children, I knew the next game was going to be for grown ups. The reasons for this are few: First, there is a need to vary your work when working almost on your own. Second, promoting a game for kids is very different to promoting one for adults. You basically have no direct communication with your players.

A few years back, when I did mostly contract web work, I had a couple of weeks free, so I decided to take some time and create a game. The game was inspired by my animation short, Sketchbook Samurai, and it came up as a pretty solid Flash fighting game. On the first weekend after I uploaded it to my server, and submitted a link in a couple of online games websites, it attracted 695,000 hits. It was pretty phenomenal. Now, it can still be found years later pretty popular on free game websites. What I took from this experiment (remember that at the time, the App Store did not exist), was that there’s a huge demand for games, even made by one person.

[youtube id=”aMR2BGg78Sg” width=”600″ height=”350″]

Sketchbook Samurai: The Game, 2003

In the following years I developed web applications, focusing on user experience and rich media applications. This later led me back to the games industry, when I started developing games for pretty big and well known clients such as Cartoon Network and AETV. When I worked on games for corporate clients, I enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with some very talented teams, creative individuals. Cross-atlantic Skype conversations about gameplay, design, features and potential pitfalls were exciting and I cherished the ability to share my expertise while learning from others.

However, I soon found out one pretty interesting truth: Apparently, when working on a project for a client, it doesn’t matter how many great ideas you have, because usually your clients will choose following the most banal and obvious path. Furthermore, the nature of such projects creates very high stress levels with eventually pretty average results. Yes, the games came out pretty nice, but playing through these often made me think, this could have gone much much further, with very little effort, if not much less effort.

Then one summer, as I was working on a pretty stressful project, based around a Solitaire game, my body started reacting pretty badly. While I was working on the game, and trying to fix a horrendous bug on which clicking on the card stacks sometimes produced awkward results breaking the game along the way, my fingers started protesting by bursting out some itchy and nasty looking blisters. The blisters didn’t disappear so quickly, and while I thought I was ‘taking it easy’ as I took some time off the bug fixing to watch a football game at the local Irish pub, my mind wasn’t really off the code, ever. Then one night I called the client and said I can’t finish the game.

Two weeks and 2 volumes of GRR Martin’s novels later, I managed to finish the game, with bandages on my fingers and some prescription drugs in my blood, and after finishing it and going live, I took a few weeks off work and kept reading the rest of ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ series. Slowly I became ispired again, but also weary that I will not be able to finish a stressful project again.

Then I started prototyping what was earlier known as Tracksuit Ninja, also code named Ninja Raider Absolute. Yes, when choosing a name eventually you leave behind all these other great ideas, but you have to keep looking ahead.

Ahead I charged, and started adding enemies, attacks, platforms and backgrounds. The game slowly became playable, and even more slowly enjoyable. I put a lot of effort on the virtual controls, as these often are the make or break of mobile platformers. Inspired by games such as Super Crate Box, and classics like Karateka, I took a game design path the tried to focus on skill, quick decision making and rigorous trial and re-trial.

Super Ninja Therapy at early stages

From the very first days it was clear that Super Ninja Therapy is going to be a pretty hard game, and while my friends protested and said it is way too hard to be satisfying, I kept balancing the game, but not by making it much easier, but by making the playing experience satisfying regardless of failure or success.

After a few weeks of work, I started wondering when the itchy blisters will come back. At what point, I thought, will the stress involved with a personal venture into commercial work show itself? But months passed, and I felt great. Inspired and creative, at the same time productive. Friends helped keep the balance of studio work and meetings, and my family supported by being there for me and also accepting that I won’t always have the time to fix a gourmet 3 course meal every day for lunch. I even managed to write a children’s book and get it selected by a publisher (coming early 2013 I hope).

Prototyping and early development are very crucial phases, but later come months and months of production, as well as the opportunity to introduce additional talents to the project, such as Norwegian musicians.

But more about these on part 2, to follow up in the next couple of days.

We are excited to announce the newest member in our app family – Tiny Fireman Free.

Tiny Fireman Free offers all the functionality of Tiny Fireman, with 1 basic area unlocked, and 3 more unlockables by in-app-purchase.

Tiny Fireman, for those not familiar with the game, is an enchanting game experience for young kids. It promotes pro-social behavior of helping others and features cooperative playing on the iPhone and iPad.

In the game, children and parents can collaborate driving the Red Truck, in an effort to rescue the animal inhabitants of Can Town. The intuitive controls allow children of ages 3 and above enjoy the game.

As you may or may not be aware, Burning Things is now called Tiny Fireman, and is receiving a fully blown update with lots of goodies.
The best of them is a more family-friendly name (ok, I got it, you don’t think Burning Things is cool), but we have much more under the hood.